Favorite Friday

It was a no-brainer to pick my favorite thing this week....I had the most beautiful Christmas ever....the Christmas Eve service at our church was amazing, Christmas Eve with Chip's family was wonderful and fun. And Christmas day was truly great! The kiddos loved all of their presents...my Dad made it down from Buffalo...we had a relaxing day and my dinner was yummy. Chip did an outstanding job on surprising me with a few wonderful things....but THE MOST FAVORITE thing I received was this heart necklace and matching diamond earrings from Cubby. His school has a Holiday Shoppe every December and he takes his shopping very seriously. I help every year and he was VERY concerned that I stay away from him that morning, so he could shop alone. Well....he did FANTASTIC! I've worn it every day and couldn't be happier! What was your favorite gift this year????

Cozy and Super Soft

I loooove my newest scarf my dear friend Sunshine. It is THE coziest and softest. I've had it on almost every day since Christmas Eve....Thank you! We're finally getting a few snowflakes around here.....Do you have a favorite cozy thing to bundle up with?

My Cupcake Tree

I just had to share my cupcake tree with you! You may remember last year I got the prettiest slim tree to hang all of my snowmen ornaments on. I keep it up until Valentine's Day and I just love it. Weeeeellll.....THIS year as I was putting up my trees, I realized I had several REALLY cute cupcake ornaments. I looked around and thought "I have two trees, and I always like things in 3's....one more little tree would make me happy." The clincher was when my sister in law gave me three more sparkly, adorable cupcakes on Christmas Eve. Well, the day after Christmas I was going around to a few stores and there was the cutest little tree, pre-lit...in an urn...in Walgreens. Just $7. I stood in front of it and thought Hubs would surely kill me if I came home with one more tree....you see I already have FOUR! But it would be PER.FECT for my Cupcake dream. I sneaked it into my house and in just a few minutes snitched all of my sweet cupcakes off of my main tree and VOILA!



Last year at my Soul Sisters Christmas party my dear real-life friend Marzipanmom stitched us a little cupcake...and I also made a cupcake ornament. And all the little ones with the red cherry on top, I picked up at Walmart last year and have had sitting on my craft room table....I was going to use them as little present toppers, but I just didn't want to share them :( So all 8 of them are now together on my tree!...and believe it or not, but another friend got me the same ones in blue! Lucky me :)



Here is a picture of all three of my trees in the great room. I LOoooooOOOOOOove it! Hubs made the comment it is looking like a jungle in here, but I don't care!



Happy Cupcakes to you! As you can see....a little tree can hold any of your favorite treats :)

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve, Everyone!! I hope Santa is good to all of you and you have the most wonderful Christmas EVER! Best wishes for Peace, Health and Happiness....It's the MOST wonderful time of the Year....Make many happy memories :)

Favorite Friday

Happy day-before-Christmas Eve! The cookies are baked, the presents are wrapped, the Christmas music is playing...I'm just working on my food things to make for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day....but I wanted to share my favorite thing this week....this cutie patootie little elf fairy! My dear friend Tammy from over at Strength for Life treated me to him. I loooove him and named him Jasper :)



He is a Mark Roberts creation and is just charming...here he is all tucked in the branches of my tree. I have declared him my favorite little thing this holiday season :) Enjoy every minute....they are going by fast!

Glittery Snowman Ornament

I know, I know....Christmas is THIS weekend....but seriously....these little cuties take MINUTES to make! I made a bunch of them the afternoon I was making them....and if you have a few last minute treats you need for someone special you can whip these up. I saw them on Pinterest...but I forgot I actually saw them at the Hobby Lobby last year....click HERE to see that I even said in my post I may try to make these :)




All you need are white glass ball ornaments, black and orange paint, Modpodge and white glitter. I dipped the eraser end of a pencil in black paint to make the eyes and mouth...then a brush to paint the carrot nose. Paint a thin coat of Modpodge all over and sprinkle with glitter. They are THAT easy!!

I'm going to link up with Jennifer Juniper's Tuesday Tutorial....hop over and check it out.

Soul Sisters Christmas Party!!

We Soul Sisters had our Christmas Party earlier in December...my pictures didn't turn out that great...so I "borrowed" these from Marzipanmom....thanks miss :) You may remember every year we do a little ornament exchange...the rules are they must be home made and you need to spend less than ten dollars on supplies....come along and see how wonderful they are....



Marzipanmom spent hours creating these amazing snowflakes complete with glitter. She rolled tiny little strips of paper to make these beauties.



Our friend Girl in the Sticks used pretty paper as well...she folded paper she chose for each of us that represents us perfectly.



I made little glitter snowman balls....really super easy....check back tomorrow for a little tutorial :)



Whoops...this picture got in here out of order and I don't feel like re-doing it....here is Jennifer Junipers super duper cute pinecone snowman and Ms. Joy's terrific glass ball that she filled with a perfect little paper tree. LOOOvvve THEM!



The previous picture of Marzipanmom's snowflakes didn't do them justice...here's a close up of their beauty!



LOTS of smiles when Joy delivered her glass balls.



And more smiles for the cute little snowmen :) We had a wonderful night over dinner and holiday drinks...as always we played our little guessing name, trying to guess our waitresses name.....Our hint was "Mustang...." Can you think of it? I hope you are all enjoying every minute of this fleeting holiday season.......I sure am!

Santa Mittens

Aren't these the cutest???!!! I knit a pair for Cindylou for her first Christmas 16 years ago.....and ever since then, I hang them on my tree as an ornamet. Well, I've known of a few babies born this year, so I knit a few more pair...and decided to write out the pattern. They whip up super quick in just a few hours...plenty of time to make a baby happy and warm this Christmas :)



Here's what you need:

size 8 needle
Red Heart Sport yarn in red, black, pink and white

Cast on 24 stitches in red. Knit 11 rows of ribbing. Continue with red and knit 4 rows of stockinette.



Then knit 4 rows of white.



Knit 8 rows of pink in stockinette. Knit 10 rows of white. Then bind off. Make two of these.



Using black and red yarn and a darning needle sew stitches on to make his face. Turn inside out and fold in half to sew up. That's it!! Waaaaay cute :) I'm linking up to Jennifer Juniper's Tutorial Tuesday over at Hope Studios....check it out. Merry Christmas!

Favorite Friday

Happy Friday!! I am loving this holiday season...cranking the Christmas music, decorating, knitting, being crafting...and soon to be baking! Next week I'll be busting out the cookie recipes and Minnie, my pink Kitchen Aid mixer. I'm excited! Well...I decided to treat myself to a cookie jar to keep them in. This season I've added a few more Santa's to my Christmas...this may be Cubby's last year believing and I'm becoming very sentimental. When I came across this SUPER CUTE Santa cookie jar on Ebay, I HAD to have it!!



Well, I kinda forgot I got a little cookie jar on clearance at my Hallmark store last year the day after Christmas. It's the one on the left.... And when I went to Buffalo last weekend, my Dad's girlfriend treated me to the really adorable one pictured on the left...also from Hallmark. Don't they look perfect together??? I LOVE them all!!!!



Here's where my Santa is sitting on my kitchen counter....and yes, that Santa plate is a new favorite too :)



And these two are perfect together...No worries.....I am sure they will all be filled with yummy cookies soon. The Treatgirl can't have too many places to stash her treats...the more the merrier!!

Sister!

My sister was able to make it to our bi-annual Thanksgiving shindig this year...she travelled for over 24 hours to make it in from Dubai. I only get to see her a few times a year...and this time I had Cindylou take a few photos of us. This is how the photo shoot started out....



But we did end up getting a cute one :) We call each other "Sister" and more often than not, she barks it at me...SIS-TER!! But she is always wonderful, amazing and generous....I wouldn't trade her for the world!

Hillbilly Wine Glasses

OK...For the record...these people are truly not Hillbillies! They are, however...from LA...that's Lower Alabama :) They're my Aunt and Uncle and they arrived to our destination Thanksgiving weekend (a.k.a FEED FEST 2011!!) in Deep Creek, Maryland with their own stemware! How super cute!!!!!!!! We all went crazy for them...but as soon as I heard $16.50 EACH the Treatgirl went into, "I can soooooo make that for waaaay less" mode. Especially when my sister went online and was going to order 8 of them AND pay for shipping!



These are sooooooooo super easy to make!! If you haven't figured it out, it's merely a Mason jar that I got at Michael's for $1.29 and a Dollar Tree candle stick...for, you got it.... a dollar :)



There were a bunch of glues to pick from at Michael's...but this one seemed like it would do the job. I just put a ribbon of glue around the bottom of the Mason jar and literally stuck the candlestick to it. I made 8 of them for my sister...I kept them all upside and stacked a bunch of books on them for extra weight and let them dry for 24 hours.




VOILA! Stinkin' EASY! You can even use littler, tiny jelly jars and make martini glasses. I'm going to link up to my real life friend Jennifer Juniper's Tuesday Tutorial post...hop over there and check it out.

Favorite Friday

Happy DECEMBER!!!!!! I'm loving the holidays! It is officially the "Christmas Season" When I hear Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"...where ever it may be....most always in a store like TJMaxx :) I am guilty of being Christmas-y before Thanksgiving....shopping, crafting and doing my cards. But there are certain things I cannot do until December 1st. Putting up my trees (yes, TREES....the treatgirl puts up FOUR!!! I am CRAZY!), the wreath on my door, playing Christmas music, wrapping, and putting Peppermint Mocha creamer in my coffee :) I switch over from Pumpkin Spice to Peppermint Mocha on December 1st. I am a complete nut case.....but that's my own sweet little tradition. It is sooooo yummy. I'm sipping my coffee working on my decorating right now. It's a little frosty here and I am loving the quiet morning of seeing all of my favorite holiday decorations. Do you have a favorite little tradition that's all your own?